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My Brilliant Friend is an Italian drama series based on Elena Ferrante's first four novels of the Neapolitan series. Created by the Italian filmmaker Saverio Costanzo, the series' fourth and final season was released on HBO on September 9, 2024.
The story of My Brilliant Friend follows the friendship of two young girls Elena Greco (known as Lenù) and Raffaella Cerullo (called Lila), who grew up together in a blue-collar neighborhood in Naples, during the 1950s. The story begins with an elder Elena, retelling her childhood shared with Lila via a memoir.
Elena gets a call from Lila's son informing her that Lila is missing. As children, both girls were excellent in academics but by the time they reached elementary school, their ways bifurcated into different directions. Elena continued her education, while Lila was forced to drop out of school and join her family's shoe-repairing business. Lila's beauty attracted numerous suitors, including Marcello Solara, the older son of the wealthy Camorra family.
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To escape the marriage, Lila tied herself into a dissenting wedlock with Stefano Carracci, the son of Don Achille, a local grocer. But this decision, made at such a young age, soon turned into a nightmare. The role of Stefano Caracci in My Brilliant Friend is played by the Italian actor Giovanni Amura.
Who is Stefano Caracci in My Brilliant Friend
Before Lila was married to Stefano, he was the local bully of the neighborhood. Stefano was the son of the local grocer Don Achille and Donna Maria. Stefano even bullied Lila, when she outperformed his brother in an academic competition. The Caracci family had a dominating influence in the neighborhood, which began to dispel once his father Don Achille was murdered.
Stefano tried to recover from this loss, running their grocery shop with his mother, father, and sister. Despite Elena's disapproval, Lila began to get closer to Stefano, although Marcello Solara was courting her for months. Stefano sold her dreams of growing the Cerullo shoe business into an independent brand.
Lila escaped her marriage to Marcello, completely trusting Stefano's decisions. However, she soon realized the graver blunder she had committed. Lila found herself trapped in the marriage, with Stefano turning violent. After giving birth to a son, Lila exited the miserable relationship and started working in a factory in Naples.
Who plays the role of Stefano Caracci in My Brilliant Friend?
The role of young Stefano Carracci is played by Kristijan Di Giacomo during Season 1 while Giovanni Amura plays the role of elder Stefano, for the rest of the show. During a conversation with Segmento Magazine, Giovanni shared a part of his acting journey. He said:
At 14, I enrolled in a professional academy of performing arts, La Ribalta, in Castellamare di Stabia, Naples, where I studied theatre, diction, and acting. My career as an actor began 1 year later. At 27, I embarked on my biggest project, My Brilliant Friend.
Giovanni auditioned for multiple characters in My Brilliant Friend including Enzo, Rino, and Pasquale. Even Elena Ferrante, the author of the novels, was involved in the selection process. Initially, the role of Stefano was given to a different actor, but the author disagreed, and Giovanni got a callback two weeks later.
The actor added:
Before that, I did a television series called Sottocopertura on RAI 2 and I started to work with such big names in Italian television as Guido Caprino and Claudio Gioਠ(in the comedy-drama Mafia only kills in Summer). Between the first and the second seasons of My Brilliant Friend, I participated in another popular television series in Italy called Rosy Abate, where I played the protagonist's best friend.
Giovanni shared that the most difficult part about playing Stefano was to take himself into the mentality of that period. Stefano Caracci was the child of his time, and Giovanni wanted to understand, the core of his character.
To prepare, I kept asking myself "why." The more questions you ask yourself, the more answers you find, and the better you get into the heart of the character. Without giving anything away for the readers who have not seen the series, Stefano was a child of his time and he had to do certain questionable things. He was a victim, but he also created victims.
The first two seasons of My Brilliant Friend are available for streaming on Amazon Prime Video. Viewers can watch all the seasons on HBO Max and Apple TV Plus.
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